The Fitbit Edge Makes a Case for Spending $80 on Telling the Time

 Vanessa Hand Orellana/CNET 

 Fitbit Edge  

 8.7

 Pros & Cons 

•  Sleek, slim design 

•  Bright screen for notifications, time and live metrics 

•  Built-in GPS, altimeter 

•  ECG and advanced health tracking 

•  Auto-detects even low-intensity workouts 

•  Works with iOS and Android 

•  Always-on display cuts battery life to two days 

•  No NFC for mobile payments 

•  No dictation or text replies on iOS 

•  Advanced health features require a subscription 

The Fitbit Edge and I got off on the wrong foot, and that's mostly on me. Fresh off smartwatch review season, I strapped on this sleek little tracker, saw a band with a screen and assumed it would run like a mini smartwatch. It didn't. And a week later, I'm starting to think that's part of its charm.

What it lacks in smartwatch functionality, such as tap-to-pay and Gemini, it makes up for in health tracking features that rival its pricier smartwatch siblings. The Fitbit Edge has an ECG feature, built-in GPS and altimeter, and can even detect signs of high blood pressure and insulin resistance.

The Edge is a true middle ground wearable. It sits between the screenless Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 5 in design, features and price. At $179, it's for the indecisive people like me who might be willing to pay $80 more for a screen, but not $400 for a smartwatch. If you taper your expectations, it ends up being a good deal.

It also works with whatever phone you have in your pocket. Unlike the Android-only Pixel Watch, the Edge works with both iPhones and Android phones. I tested it with an iPhone 14 Pro , and the only thing I didn't have access to was the canned text replies, which I didn't really miss.

Fitbit Edge design

This isn't Google's first rodeo with fitness trackers that have screens, and it shows. The Edge follows the same general formula as the Fitbit Inspire and Charge , with a more polished look than their sporty, utilitarian designs. A metal frame surrounds its 1.34-inch AMOLED display, which is 46% larger than the Charge 6's, but seems slimmer because of the smaller bezels. It's tiny and demure next to the Pixel Watch, but the screen is still big enough to show the time, workout metrics and notifications without squinting (too much).

Swappable bands make it easy to dress up or down. I tested the gold model with silicone bands in olive and canyon (pink), but my favorite was the brown leather band, sold separately for $60. Paired with the gold frame, it made the Edge look less like a Fitbit and more like an intentional statement piece that goes with everything.

The caveat however, is that the leather band's magnetic closure isn't as secure as a traditional clasp. It's easy to put on, but tends to loosened throughout the day if you're taking off a sweater, or putting on a backpack. One night, I slept about seven hours and the Edge only logged five. The most likely culprit was that the band had loosened during the night, which interfered with the sensor contact on my wrist. I've gotten better at adjusting it before bed, but I'm not sure how much tracking accuracy I'm willing to compromise for style and I may be back on the silicone band by the end of the week.

The Edge has a physical button on the side to access the menu, but I wish I could program it with shortcuts like I would on other wearables (double-pressing to quickly launch my favorite workout for example).

It's also Fitbit's first tracker with a replaceable battery that you can attempt to swap yourself. While I fortunately haven't had to test that yet, it's a unique feature in the wearable world that could help extend its life as the battery inevitably degrades.

Working out with the Edge

Google has improved automatic workout detection since launching the Fitbit Air, and in my testing, the Edge recognized everything from vigorous cardio to low-intensity strength training with little help. (The Air has also gotten the upgrade.)

With the Air, I spent weeks manually tagging workouts before it finally caught on. The Edge, on the other hand, picked up my Pilates session on its own the second time I did it. I'd tagged the first session manually, so I can't say whether it would have caught that one right off the bat, but it certainly learned far faster than the Air did during my testing, which backs up Google's claim.

When I do start a workout manually, the screen saves me from having to use my phone as the middleman (which ends up leading me to doomscrolling instead of working out). I also appreciate the dedicated power walk option, which better fits the aggressive stomp I break into after putting my kids to bed better than the generic "walk" option.

On power walks and runs, I rely on heart rate zones to push myself, so having live heart rate data on my wrist felt like a massive upgrade from the Air.

HR accuracyis a nice surprise

And the heart rate accuracy itself was impressive for such a tiny device. I took the Edge on a 3-mile run alongside my Polar H10 chest strap, gold standard for consumer heart rate tracking, and the two averaged within 1 beat per minute of each other. The Edge lagged slightly during a sudden heart rate spike while jogging uphill, but that's fairly common, even among dedicated sports watches such as those from Garmin. It caught up within a second or two.

Unlike the Air, which relies on your phone for GPS, the Edge has built-in GPS and an altimeter. During my testing, the Air split an 8-mile hike in Yosemite into three separate workouts which left me frustrated and with missing credit. With the Edge, I can leave my phone behind on a run without worrying about losing my route or elevation data. My workout summary in the Google Health app even included kudos from the AI coach for pushing through the final 125-foot climb during my run — a welcome nod to my suffering.

The Edge can also broadcast live heart rate data to compatible exercise equipment, letting you see your heart rate on a treadmill or supported machine. But since treadmills might as well be torture devices to me (I prefer the outdoors for cardio), I haven't tested this feature myself.

Full health suite and ECG

Despite the size difference, the Edge includes many of the Pixel Watch 5's health sensors and features, including blood oxygen and skin temperature tracking, high- and low-heart-rate alerts, irregular rhythm notifications and even ECG readings. It's also getting Health Guardian's blood pressure and insulin resistance trends later this month. They aren't true spot readings of either metric, but they can flag potentially concerning signals over time.

The redesigned Google Health app is where all these data dots connect. Readiness, sleep and activity metrics feed into Google Health Coach , an AI-powered assistant that generates reports and personalized training plans based on your goals, equipment and time commitment.

Where it falls short, at least for me, is menstrual cycle tracking. Beyond logging periods and symptoms and surfacing general ovulation estimates, there's little connection between temperature trends, readiness and the hormonal changes that can affect my training. Google recently announced a partnership with cycle-tracking app Flo in early 2027, which could help fill those gaps by syncing cycle data with the Google Health app and feeding it into the Coach's guidance, but until then, I hesitate to recommend relying on yet another app for information that should live in one place.

The AI guidance, Health Guardian and the future cycle tracking integration however, all require Google Health Premium, which costs $10 a month or $100 a year (after the Edge's three-month free trial). That's an added cost if you want the health features that make this tracker stand out.

The seven-day battery life comes with a big asterisk

Battery life was perhaps my biggest disappointment. During my testing, the screenless Fitbit Air lasted about eight days on a charge (one more than the claim), and the Pixel Watch 5 held up for about a day and a half, so I figured the Edge would split the difference and land at around five days on a charge. When I learned Google promised a full week, I was floored.

But it was too good to be true. That seven-day estimate is assuming you're using raise to wake (the screen stays off until you tilt your wrist). With the always-on display, which I prefer, Google's estimate drops to two days. That's not much longer than the Pixel Watch 5, which has a grown-ass screen and a lot more features. If I can't subtly glance at the time while bored in a meeting, I might as well be wearing the Air and save the extra $80.

OK, so that's a tad dramatic, but something about a black screen strapped to my wrist doesn't sit right with me.

I've managed to squeeze a third day out of the Edge, including two nights of sleep tracking and four outdoor workouts, but that's with a few concessions. I scheduled the always-on display from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. (switches to raise to wake overnight) and let the Edge drop into low-power mode when it hit 10% which disables the AOD. This disabled the always-on display and reduced health readings, including readiness score.

Fast charging helps ease the blow a bit. Five minutes gets you up to a day of battery, but a full charge takes about 90 minutes, which feels long for such a small device, especially since the larger Pixel Watch 5 charges fully in under an hour.

What frustrated me most was that I couldn't control these battery-saving modes from my wrist and instead had to rely on my phone. I kept instinctively tapping the battery icon in the quick settings panel, expecting it to do something.

Less smartwatch, fewer distractions — a blessing in disguise

The Edge borrows so much from the Pixel Watch, including its tiles and watch faces with complications, that it's easy to forget it isn't a smartwatch. It runs Fitbit's own operating system rather than Wear OS .

I kept raising my wrist to talk to Gemini, a habit I picked up from testing out the Pixel Watch. But there's no Gemini here, or even a microphone or speaker, so voice commands, dictation and calls are out of the question.

There's also no NFC for contactless payments, a particularly disappointing omission considering the older Charge 6 had it. No gesture controls, either, but hey, first-world problems.

You still get notifications, incoming call alerts, weather, alarms, timers, media controls and turn-by-turn directions. On Android, you can also send preset replies to messages.

Initially, the lack of controls felt limiting. But after a week, I started appreciating the reduced distractions. Getting a vibration when someone's calling is practically a lifeline since I always forget to take my phone off silent, but I've found myself less likely to get sucked into nonurgent text conversations (because I can't text back), freeing me up to stay present during work and family time. It also has a ping-my-phone feature, which, aside from telling the time, is the number one reason why I could never quit my smartwatch habit. It's saved me hours of sleuthing around the house, and is one of the best features the Edge could inherit from its pricier siblings.

Bottom line

The Fitbit Edge isn't a smartwatch alternative. If that's what you want, you're better off bargain hunting for an older Pixel Watch, like the Pixel Watch 4 , which sells for around $300.

This one is more for people prioritizing health tracking who see the screen as a helpful add-on, not the main prize.

For anyone also considering the Fitbit Air, it comes down to whether seeing the time is worth $80. The muscle memory of relying on my wrist for checking the time kept me feeling like the Fitbit Air was just freeloading. The Edge fixes that and gives me a heads-up about calls and texts without the constant distractions of a full-fledged smartwatch. Add ECG, built-in GPS and heart rate tracking that kept up with a chest strap, and that $80 goes a long way.

The trade-off is battery life. Sure you can get a week on a charge, but if you like having that always-on display like me, then you're looking at three days tops. And since you're less likely to wear the Edge alongside a smartwatch like you would a Fitbit Air, you're left with no backup when it dies mid-workout.

It took me a week to stop expecting the Edge to act like a smartwatch and start appreciating what it does, and now it stands out as the true Goldilocks pick for indecisive people like me.

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